Leap Financial announced a $3.5 million seed raise led by Fuel Venture Capital, with investment in the Miami-based fintech reportedly coming from Ascendo Venture Capital.
Leap provides a service that allows financial and non-financial institutions to participate in cross-border money flows, eliminating “inefficiencies and helping immigrants send money home.”
Leap specializes in embedded remittances and embedded payments, offering AI-enhanced engagement, efficient cross-border transactions, and “integrated end-to-end payment solutions.”
Leap Financial combines its X-Border Payments Platform with a Native AI super agent and its embedded financial banking as well as payment services infrastructure.
Leap is the firm focused on embedded digital remittances, transforming how traditional cross-border transfers work to “remove cash from the equation and leverage more secure, compliant and cost-effective” digital remittances.
While traditional money transmitters average 6-10% on the total cost of remittance, Leap provides remittances under 1% of the cost, “leaving the difference for partners to decide the price.”
Maggie Vo, Managing General Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Fuel Venture Capital said:
“Many companies attempt to tackle remittance and fintech, but they often excel in technology while lacking the necessary financial expertise. Leap stands out with their team’s deep understanding of remittance, banking infrastructure, and compliance—knowledge that the founders have built over many years in the industry. We don’t just invest in good tech and AI, we see the future in Leap’s AI-driven approach, supported by experienced professionals who ultimately know this business inside and out.”
Lionel Carrasco, CEO and Co-Founder of Leap said:
“Leap was founded to help immigrants overcome disparity and change the 100-year-old ways that allow incumbents to take 10% cuts for check cashing services, 5% for simple international money transfers or drain bank accounts with shady fees from hard-working people who barely make a living. We can do better than that and still be able to make profits. Like Jeff Bezos’s famous quote, ‘Your margin is my opportunity,’ we say, ‘Your inefficiency is our opportunity.’”
The capital raised will help Leap respond to the demand and new customers generated by its partnership with Mastercard and additional business development activity.
Leap will use new resources to acquire talent to boost its AI component, making it easy for financial or nonfinancial services organizations to employ “AI agents to provide personalized services.”
Founded by Lionel Carrasco and Marcela Henao, Leap partnered with federal banks to originate remittances leveraging Mastercard and aggregators to send money to debit cards and wallets, removing “intermediaries and creating cost efficiencies, all while enhancing anti-money laundering controls for maximum and frictionless compliance.”
Leap explains that provides a solution that allows remitters to pay with digital methods and deliver money to cards and wallets with “full regulatory compliance, making the ecosystem more resilient to bad actors.”
